


Playing by the Rules

by AntiGravitas



Series: After Paris [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: M/M, post-CoG
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-07 23:52:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17375567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntiGravitas/pseuds/AntiGravitas
Summary: “Newt,” Percival says slowly, and ever so calmly, so that Newt knows without a doubt exactly how much trouble he is in, “I am Director of Magical Security for MACUSA, an esteemed and august position that requires me, amongst other things, to be of impeccable character and pristine reputation,in all matters. You cannot store anillegal Hippogriffin mycellar.”The trouble with sleeping with aurors is all those pesky laws that apparently they must abide by.





	Playing by the Rules

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vins/gifts).



Graves’ townhouse has a cellar. It’s a swish affair, as is to be expected from anything owned by Percival Graves, with serried ranks of sturdy wine racks and large echoing spaces for anything else the modern magical family might choose to store down in their flagstoned and impeccably damp-free basement. Right now Newt is using it to store a very secret friend. With utmost care he puts a hand over said friend’s beak and shushes her, gently stroking the feathers between her eyes and soothing her complaints with his presence. It is of vital importance that they not be discovered down here.

_“Newt.”_

Damn it.

“Is that a Hippogriff?”

The Hippogriff hisses and lifts her wings at the figure standing on the stairs, the sound of her challenge bouncing between the arches of the high ceilinged cellar and setting up a pretty pattern of echoes amongst the wine racks. Percival Graves’ eyes narrow and he comes to a halt at the foot of the steps.

“I have a permit!” Newt declares, holding it up like a warding talisman, and taking a precautionary step sideways between the beast on the stairs and the Hippogriff behind him.

With all the slow grace of an apex predator, Percival moves forward and reaches out to pluck it from Newt’s fingers, keeping one eye on the clacking beak of the Hippogriff as he scans with the other down the paper. “...this is for France.”

Newt nods hurriedly, holding up a placatory hand, “Yes, but it is a permit-”

“It is _valid_ in _France_!” Percival snaps.  
  
“And the magical communities of the United States and France have been allies since-” Newt begins, then stops abruptly at the dangerous gleam in Percival’s eye.

“Newt,” Percival says slowly, and ever so calmly, so that Newt knows without a doubt exactly how much trouble he is in, “I am Director of Magical Security for MACUSA, an esteemed and august position that requires me, amongst other things, to be of impeccable character and pristine reputation, in _all matters._ You cannot store an _illegal Hippogriff_ in my _cellar._ ”

“Well, it’s probably more like shouldn’t rather than can’t,” Newt murmurs, and Percival’s look is withering. Wisely, Newt takes back the permit, and holds it up in defeat. “I’ll uhm, I’ll get this updated. I mean, I do have an old copy of my international permit ah, upstairs I think, so that should be- _Phoebe_!”

There’s a brief battle, punctuated by ominous tearing, as Newt tries in vain to rescue the French permit from his friend’s beaky grasp. Eventually he gives up and watches in dismay as the last of the yellowed paper disappears down the Hippogriff’s gullet.

“Unbelievable!” Newt exclaims.

Percival glares at him, and Phoebe, satisfied with her handiwork, looses such a cry of victory that it sets up a resonance in the nearby bottle racks and even days later prompts Graves to complain of deafness in one ear.

In truth, Newt isn’t entirely sure how to get round the idea of Percival’s law-abiding-ness. The onset of their relationship, a description that both amuses Newt and makes Percival frown, had been almost completely unexpected, and if Newt is being totally honest one that had been based almost entirely on physical attraction. At least, that’s what had prompted Newt’s acceptance of drinks, because after Paris and everything that had happened there, leaving behind the memories of fire and loss and his brother’s grief to find solace in the arms of someone handsome enough to charm the coins out of a Niffler’s claws had seemed to him entirely reasonable. Even if that someone _is_ a copper.

And yes of course it had been out of character for Newt, at least for the character he’s so long presented to those that felt they knew him best. Presented, or at the very least allowed them to base their safe assumptions upon. (Except for Dumbledore, who had smiled with that wickedly smug twist of his lips, the one that both makes Newt want to punch him and has, in the not so distant past, made him want to do something entirely else instead.)

But Dumbledore is in Scotland and Newt is in New York, as far away from Paris and the looming war as he can currently get. It’s not that he’s fled the scene precisely, he’d meant what he’d said to Theseus after all, he’s picked his side now, but Grindelwald has gone to ground and there’s only so much sitting around cooling his heels under the watchful eyes of the Ministry that Newt can handle. They’ll owl him when they need him, he’s sure. Or just clap him in irons and cart him off across the ocean to wherever they expect him to do their bidding next.

No, Percival Graves had found him in London and Newt, taken aback by the sudden appearance of a man he’d not actually met before who looked at him with an intensity that was borderline unsettling, Newt had thrown back the gin Graves bought for him and listened to all the things the man was not saying amidst all the things he thought he might be, and came to the sudden realisation that he’d reached his limit to care. Paris was a swirling mess of grief and disbelief in his head, and Percival Graves was a beautiful, wounded man who looked at him as though he’d found the answer to his every prayer. And perhaps he had. Newt thinks it must have been an awful thing to have gone unmissed for so long by so many people who should have known better. Worse than being forgotten even, being written over by someone else so successfully that even the act of returning seemed vaguely fraudulent.

After the pub they’d gone back to Percival’s hotel room, and Newt, satisfyingly drunk enough to make the first move, had done so, because despite what everyone at the Ministry might think of him he’s not some blushing virgin and when he decides he wants something he damned well goes out and gets it. Feelings - romance, friendship, love, all those complicated things - those are hard, but sex is a simple equation of give and take that Graves does not resist and Merlin apparently they’d _both_ needed it something bad. They did make it to the bed, but it was a close thing since neither of them had been in full possession of their balance and the amount of gin they’d drunk between them could have pickled a small Thunderbird.

It had been satisfying in a purely carnal way, and it had chased away the memories for a little while, even if it had been drunkenly clumsy and probably, in hindsight, hardly the best either of them had ever had. Still, Graves had written to him a month later, inviting him back to New York, and because sometimes all you need to convince the Ministry that you’re allowed out of the country is to be seen in the company of the favoured movers and shakers of international allied powers, and, well, the papers had been stamped and suddenly Newt’s official freedom had been returned to him.

“Be careful, Newt,” Theseus had said, and Newt had tried not to pull away from his brother’s embrace as quickly as he usually did. He’s getting better at that these days.

Carrying on a relationship with a man he’d first met under the most terrifying of circumstances, and then who it had turned out he’d never met at all, well, it’s complex. Newt’s life is complex. Everything Newt wants should be simple - freedom to travel, to work with his beasts, a nice pot of tea and perhaps a gentle, no obligations romance. What he gets is a beautiful, uptight bastard of an auror who carries a psychological wound that’s still bleeding rage and who fucks like it’s the last thing left keeping him alive. Newt hadn’t expected nights like the ones he gets with Percival Graves, and there’s times when the man’s intensity, his focus and the silvered edge of the betrayal that burns in him is almost too much. He thinks about leaving sometimes, about putting some distance between them, both literally and figuratively, but each time the rawness in Percival’s eyes stops him, the intensity of his interest and the shiver of something delicious that bypasses his thinking mind and goes straight to the heart of his lust whenever Percival dips his chin and looks at him from beneath his lowered brow. Newt likes to tend to wounded things, it’s always been his weakness, but he’s also not immune to the simple power of sex.

It is a problem though, because sleeping with an auror means taking on certain other considerations during the day such as said auror’s job restrictions. And of course Percival Graves, as he is so often wont to remind Newt, is not just any auror. He’s ‘Director of Magical Security for blah blah blah’, yes quite, Newt had heard him the first time. It makes it difficult though, because Newt doesn’t _do_ rules, at least, not rules that _don’t make an ounce of sense._ Which is where the friction in their strange relationship comes from, and is what quite frankly is going to be the leading factor in Percival finally losing what’s left of his infamously steely composure and hauling Newt right off to the cells if he doesn’t just throttle him first.

But on the other hand, as Newt has occasionally pointed out, every relationship has its stress points, and there’s a certain allure to a bit of improvisation, just sometimes, isn’t there? He’d have said danger rather than improvisation had either of them been perhaps another few years out from the winter of 1926, or the cold blue fire of Paris, but as it is those memories still crowd too close for such sentiments. Regardless, there’s a dangerous tilt to Percival’s lips when Newt makes such comments, and a slow deliberate grace to his movements as he leans in close to speak against Newt’s ear, and those things together take Newt back to the cold white cells below the Woolworth Building and the way another man wearing Percival’s face had looked at him. He ought to be afraid. He finds, to his horror, that he is most certainly not.

He's never entirely sure how much of the reason behind his interest Percival picks up on, but he's aware the other man has marked his fascination with the slow flex of his shoulders when he comes back from a day training his young aurors to duel, or the way he rolls his wand between the tips of his fingers as he talks - easy, lazy movements that speak of casual power and the type of confidence only a man that can call himself an archmage might possess. Newt likes wounded things, but although he may not seek to possess it it's also not difficult to see that he has at least an appreciation for power too. These things Percival takes pleased advantage of, and in that way they salve the worst of their disagreements.

In the end they resolve the Phoebe issue almost by accident. The New York chapter of the International Wizarding Post have a sick beast, a requirement for a stand-in and the legally-enshrined ability to requisition a replacement from the stables of the general populace should the need arise. Newt, having previously encountered the IWP on several occasions due to his mother’s own Hippogriff stables puts up not even a token resistance to their offer to take the beast off his hands, and with Percival scowling grimly in the background sends Phoebe off to start a new life as an international carrier of wizarding mail.

Afterwards, in an attempt to curb the worst of Percival’s irritation, Newt uses the somewhat trivial monetary compensation he receives from the IWP to take his partner for a meal at an upmarket place he knows will ease the tension just a little bit. They spend a very pleasant evening enjoying wine and steak, and later on each other before the crackling log fire of the library in Graves’ townhouse. Mollified by good food and sex, Percival stretches out beside Newt on the thick fireside rug and gently requests that he not to make such unwise choices again in future. Newt, caught up by the hand that’s sliding down his body, tracing over his belly and lower still until he arches up and gasps between his teeth, gives no verbal reply to the entreaty. He does however make a mental note to move the rescued Hungarian Horntail egg he’s been storing down in Graves’ cellar to a slightly less conspicuous location, just in case.

After all, what aurors don’t know _probably_ won’t hurt them.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The irrepressible Newt. He just can't help himself. ;]


End file.
